MP3 vs M4A (AAC): what is the audio codec for portable devices which gives maximum independence?

A couple of years back MP3 was the most supported format for portable devices. Then Apple came along and wiped the floor of all the portable devices with the iPod as well as the iPhone. They clearly favour M4A (AAC).

When to choose, right now, the 'best' audio codec to encode music to, which would you choose to achieve maximal independence of portable device vendors: MP3 or M4A?

(I am well aware of Ogg (Vorbis): no market (maybe this changes with HTML5 and more WebKit on portable devices), I am also aware of FLAC: I don't want to discuss long term storage.)

Answer

If you plan to use your audio files on more than one portable player, especially if you want to use them on future players that you haven't bought yet (so you don't know what formats they will support), MP3 is more or less your only option. Even for players with support for other formats, that support is often incomplete and buggy.

Unless you make sure to only buy Rockbox-compatible players. Then you can use pretty much any format you like.

Of course, the only truly future-proof solution is keeping lossless copies of everything and transcoding to lossy formats for mobile players.

Comments

keyboard - Is there any utility/method to change Windows key bindings to type rare chars to currently empty bindings?

I'm currently typing this post with my windows XP machine and (Spanish) keyboard, and I'd like to add some extra symbols to my text. I could open the "char map" windows utility, look for the desired symbols, and paste them. But I'd like something quickier. For example, when I'm using my OSX Mac at work, I can easily add a ©, ™, ® or similar symbols, just pressing some weird ALT-GR + G / H / J, key combinations. In my (Spanish) keyboard mapping, these combinations are empty, as they don't produce any char at all, which, on the other hand, is perfectly normal and desirable. So, I thought: Why couldn't I add some extra key mappings on top of my currently empty ALT-GR + G/J/H Keys in my Spanish keyboard, and thus, being able to quickly type these special symbols? So that's my question: Is there any utility/method to achieve that effect under windows? (My version is XP). I've even googled this for some time but no luck. I've been a long term Hot...

virtualization - How to select paravirtualization interface in VirtualBox?

Given a windows 8 host system (Intel Core i5) and a Linux Fedora host, I would like to determine the optimal setting for the paravirtual interface. Options are none Default Legacy minimal Hyper-V KVM This page suggest the selection is only based on the guest system: The biggest change in VirtualBox 5.0 is the introduction of paravirtualization support, bringing higher performance and time-keeping accuracy to supported guest operating systems (Hyper-V on Windows and KVM on Linux). Is that correct? Answer The VirtualBox Manual , in the section titled Paravirtualization providers explains very clearly when each should be used (emphasis added): Minimal: Announces the presence of a virtualized environment. Additionally, reports the TSC and APIC frequency to the guest operating system. This provider is mandatory for running any Mac OS X guests. KVM: Presents a Linux KVM hypervisor interface which is recognized by Linux kernels starting with version 2.6.25. VirtualBox's implementati...

How do I transmit a single hexadecimal value serial data in PuTTY using an Alt code?

I am trying to sent a specific hexadecimal value across a serial COM port using PuTTY. Specifically, I want to send the hex codes 9C, B6, FC, and 8B. I have looked up the Alt codes for these and they are 156, 182, 252, and 139 respectively. However, whenever I input the Alt codes, a preceding hex value of C2 is sent before 9C, B6, and 8B so the values that are sent are C2 9C, C2 B6, and C2 8B. The value for FC is changed to C3 FC. Why are these values being placed before the hex value and why is FC being changed altogether? To me, it seems like there is a problem internally converting the Alt code to hex. Is there a way to directly input hex values without using Alt codes in PuTTY? Answer What you're seeing is just ordinary text character set conversion. As far as PuTTY is concerned, you are typing (and reading) text , not raw binary data, therefore it has to convert the text to bytes in whatever configured character set before sending it over the wire. In other words, when y...

Desktop reboots itself on sleep or hibernate

I have been using an ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard for main home desktop workstation, operating Windows Vista x64. This computer has right from day one not been able to enter hibernate or standby; after Windows performs its final actions and brings the machine down, it would automatically revive itself for a reboot. Updating to the second latest BIOS (1201)has not helped (the latest BIOS revision would induce video refresh problems rendering it unusable). I have been reading related discussions on incidents similar to mine to no avail of a true workable solution. They appear to be more speculative guesses rather than actual knowledge on the inner workings of motherboard hardware. Does anybody have any electronic engineering experience on PC energy-saving standards to provide a more informed opinion how to go about getting this to work? More stories: this motherboard could not even reboot properly the first thing i used it. It was due to refresh rate of the onboard GPU, which had no influe...

Notes

Search This Blog